ON SAINT AGRIPPINUS
BISHOP OF COMO IN ITALY.
>AROUND 586.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
On his cult, deeds, and the translation of his body.
Agrippinus, Bishop of Como in Subalpine Italy (St.)
AUTH. G. H. & D. P.
We proceed to celebrate the saints of the Church of Como or Novum Comum, by Lake Larius; and as the third this month of June we give the holy Bishop Agrippinus, whose cult is most thoroughly established: for every year throughout the city and diocese of Novum Comum his memory is renewed in the Ecclesiastical Office, The Ecclesiastical Office. as R. D. Primus Aloysius de Tattis of Novum Comum wrote to us, Theologian of the Somaschan Congregation, and Consultor of the holy Office, being asked about the cult of St. Dominica Virgin and sister of St. Agrippinus, concerning whom it was said at her Life on 13 May. The same Primus Aloysius de Tattis, in his Martyrology of Novum Comum, printed in the year 1675, adorns St. Agrippinus with this elogium: Memory in the Martyrology of Como, "On the fifteenth of the Kalends of July. In the Cistercian Monastery of Aqua-frigida of the diocese of Como, of St. Agrippinus Bishop and Confessor: who, in the utmost wickedness of the times, governing the Church committed to him, also shone forth with the highest sanctity. He consecrated the ancient temple of St. Justina Martyr, now St. Nicholas, of Piona. Finally, on the island of Lake Larius seized by his last illness, on the same heaped up with glorious merits, he migrated to heaven."
[2] Mention in writers, Soon in the Notes, in the first place, these things are read: "Of him treat, with the Breviary of the Church of Como, Lazarus Carafinus, in the peculiar Offices of the same Church; Philip Ferrari, in the Catalogue of the saints of Italy, in the general catalogue of saints, and in the Topography to the Roman Martyrology; Benedict Giovio, History of the homeland book 2; Thomas Porcacchi, Nobility of Como book 2; Philip Archintus, in the syllabus of his Predecessors; the same Lazarus Carafinus, both in the Diptych of the Bishops of Como num. 13, and in the Catalogue of Saints and Blessed, whose Bodies rest in the city and diocese; Robert Ruscha, both book 1 of the Nobility of his family, and in the description of the monastery of Aqua-frigida; Francis Ballarinus, Chronicle of Como part 2; Quintilius Lucinus Passalaqua, in his first historical epistle; Ferdinand Ughelli, Italia sacra vol. 5, in the series of the Bishops of Como num. 13; Lelius Fravezzius, in the Diary of Como on this day, and we more fully in the Decade of the Annals of Como, book 8 from num. 11 to 80."
[3] Thus he there: who in the Annals page 571 puts the beginning of the Episcopate of St. Agrippinus in the year 568, The year the Episcopate was undertaken, 568. and first inquires about his homeland, because Ballarinus page 10, and Ughelli following him, believed him a German by nation, born at Colonia Agrippina (Cologne), to have come to Como by divine instinct; and when his sanctity had become known to Bishop John, Whether his homeland was Colonia Agrippina, he took care that he be elected Bishop after his own death, with prior persuasions. Which, when it had happily succeeded according to the wish of the dying one, he answered abundantly to the expectation of the Como people. But more ancient monuments are required on this matter; for in those times Bishops do not seem to have been taken from elsewhere than from their own Clergy. The cause of feigning this seems to have been given by the name Agrippinus, which, however, as a diminutive from Agrippa (by which name was illustrious the son-in-law of Caesar Augustus) was frequent enough among the Romans. or whether a Benedictine. Besides, de Tattis treats at length against Robert Ruscha, wrongly affirming that St. Agrippinus was taken from the monastic Order of St. Benedict: which things may be seen in him. He adds that the same injury is branded on the truth, by affirming that the Church of St. Mary, which is now called the Priory of Aqua-frigida, was founded by Agrippinus, for that the foundations of this were laid in the year 1142, ancient and faithful records teach: therefore Agrippinus did not consecrate a Church there, nor, dead, did he receive a tomb under the high altar there: since that church only began to be built five hundred and sixty years after the death of St. Agrippinus.
[4] These things being rejected, the same de Tattis hands down these as more certain. Dead around the year 586, laid in the Castle of the Island, St. Agrippinus died around the year 586, is buried in the Castle of the Island which Larius surrounds; and which Paul the Deacon, in the history of the Lombards, calls Comacina. Here Agrippinus first fell ill, here he died, and here truly after death he was given over to burial. Here also for several years, up to the last destruction of the Island, he rested in his own church: translated to the Chapel of St. Peter and the Church of Aqua-frigida, from which afterward the bones were carried to the chapel of St. Peter: and this too being demolished after some years, at last they migrated to the church of Aqua-frigida. All these things are established from the ancient monuments of St. Euphemia, transmitted to us: which, because they cohere with other manuscripts of Aqua-frigida, we esteem them most faithful, and rightly approve, the fables of the moderns being rejected. Agrippinus slept under the high altar, and in the year 1598 laid more becomingly. until the year of the Lord 1598, in which he was found; and, honored with worthy cult, by Philip Archintus Bishop of Novum Comum, was again placed under the same altar in a more becoming sepulchre.
[5] Thus the aforepraised writer in his Notes to the Martyrology of Como. On 18 January are venerated the holy Virgins Liberata and Faustina: whose Life we have edited from the Italian of Francis Balarinus, whether before him SS. Liberata and Faustina professed their vows. in which at num. 4 these things are read: "There presided at that time over the Church of Como St. Agrippinus, the 13th Bishop: before whom the holy sisters pronounced their vow of perpetual virginity, and received the habit and rule of the still recent Benedictine family; and, their father furnishing the expenses, set up an oratory in the name of the Virgin Mary, Mother of God." Aloysius does not dare to assent to these as certain in the Annals at the year 570 num. 43; and in his Martyrology at the same day 18 January he does not mention St. Agrippinus; nay rather at their obsequies at the year 591 num. 121 he says that Adelbert the Bishop was present, not Agrippinus. But before, at the year 586 num. 65, for confirmation of the church of St. Nicholas of Piona consecrated by him in the parish of Gravedona, he published this ancient Inscription in these letters: Inscription of the Church of St. Justina consecrated by him. AGRIPPINUS SERVANT OF CHRIST BISHOP OF THE CITY OF COMO, THIS ORATORY OF ST. JUSTINA MARTYR, IN THE 10TH YEAR OF HIS ORDINATION, WILL BUILD FROM THE FOUNDATIONS AND WILL ORDAIN BURIAL-PLACES THERE AND WILL COMPLETE IN ALL THINGS. TO THE GLORY OF THE ✠ HE WILL DEDICATE, that is, he dedicated to the glory of the Cross, for B is used for V.
[6] These things being thus collected by Henschenius, in the third year after his death, The translation of the body, there appeared at Milan another volume of the Annals of Como, where page 461, under the note of the year 1166, it treats of the destruction of the aforenamed island, and so also of the translation of the body of St. Agrippinus and of his sister St. Dominica commemorated on 13 May, which on such an occasion Robert Rusca, a more recent author, argues to have been first made, describing the Translation itself more at length, and asserting both to have been made in the year 1127. But since in the same year the city of Como was utterly overthrown, Aloysius rightly judges that the citizens, solicitous about repairing their own disaster, before the destruction of the Island made in the year 1166, are not rightly believed to have had so much spirit that they would then have wished to avenge themselves on their men of the Island, rebels in the Milanese war. But it is exceedingly strange how he could so err in marking the year of the aforesaid destruction, who would have this verse before his eyes, as Aloysius transcribes it from him, yet not without an error even himself, but a typographical one, by which is written "9 Ique" for "V. Ique," the use of Cyphers certainly at such an age being none in Europe; as Kircher learnedly proved, scrutinizing the birth of Cyphers from the egg, so to speak; under whose lead I composed in the Historical series of the Patriarchs of Jerusalem Parergon XII. Receive the distich itself written more clearly, and read the single numeral letters syllable by syllable, eM, Ce, etc.
"M. C. add the years, L. X. V. and I to be noted; / When the Island fell there was a great pestilence." Hence if you gather the numeral letters into one, you will have 1166.
[7] The Bishop of the city was then Anselm; who, when he could not divert the publicly taken counsel of exterminating the islanders, and even of destroying their churches; Anselm the Bishop taking care, persuaded that the sacred Relics within them be decently transferred elsewhere. And first indeed it pleased that they should be deposited for a time, until it should be further discerned what would be more expedient, within the chapel of St. Peter, situated on the shore of the lake opposite the island: whence perhaps the Bishop hoped easily to transfer them all to his Cathedral: who then granted it to the church of the Cistercians. but the great favor of the Cistercian Monks, both with him himself and with the citizens of Como, obtained that after some delay there this sacred treasure should be ceded to them, to be placed in their church of St. Mary of Oliveto; which they judged should be called by a new title of SS. Mary and Agrippinus. The whole order and adornment of the Procession the aforesaid Robert describes, but in naming the Bishop Guido; he even contradicted himself. Thus far the Annalist of Como: Robert could have been deceived by the bodies of other Saints, which it is established that the same Guido translated in the year 1096: concerning which matter something must still be said from Ughelli in the supplement to 18 January, where of SS. Liberata and Faustina. See meanwhile the said Annals page 289.